Face caked with dirt and bruising fast, Jean-Louis lets out a crazed chuckle. “Who are you working for now, kid? Me? Sutton? Do you have any independent thoughts inside your brain, or do you just do whatever anyone says? What’s it like to be so spineless?”
Beckett’s gaze hardens. “Shutup.”
Lifting his arms, Beckett presses the mouth of the gun beneath Jean-Louis’s chin.
I edge closer, not sure this is something I feel like cleaning up if Beckett goes too far.
Not sure I’ll be able to pull Beckett back if he does.
“Pathetic, both of you.” Jean-Louis hacks up more blood, glancing at me. “You’re lucky I never got my hands on that slut of yours. I’d have ruined her pus?—”
The heel of my shoe connects with his cheek, making his head snap to the side. Grunting, he vomits pure crimson and spits out a tooth before smiling up at me, one canine missing.
“One day, that jealousy’s gonna get you into trouble.”
“Why did you come here?” I ask. “Just to taunt us?”
“I wanted to see if Becks here had fulfilled his end of the task, since he fucked up so royally last semester with the other Anderson kid. Unfortunately, Pythia seems to have failed me this time as well.”
“Pythia?”
He gives me a strange look. “You didn’t recognize her last night?”
Familiar eyes flash in my mind, though they don’t match the owner of the journal. The one I gave to Quincy.
How many Pythias are there then?
Beckett brings his wrists back, abruptly slapping Jean-Louis across the face with the side of the gun. “You talk too goddamn much. Apologize to my brother or else.”
“Your brother. That’s still the official party line, huh? No one’s ever going to ask why Sutton and Bellamy didn’t resemble me at all?”
Staggering back a half step, I frown. What the hell is he even talking about?
His laugh is tinged with wetness, and he spits more blood, letting it run down his chin. “Guess not. You two keep paddling along in your deluded little worlds, oblivious to everything around you.” He shifts, trying to buck Beckett off, but my brother maintains his position. “When Avernia and Fury Hill burn to the ground, you’ll only have yourselves to blame.”
Beckett smacks Jean-Louis again, earning a growl from his throat as his head is whipped to the side once more.
Before he can recover, Beckett’s hands come down a third time. Then a fourth. A fifth, until Jean-Louis’s entire face is marred by crimson liquid, making him less recognizable.
“This is all your fault,” Beckett cries. “You set Bellamy up, you set Elle Anderson up, and you set me up. I wouldn’t have done any of this if you hadn’t put the ideas in my head.”
“Beckett.” I’m saying his name before I realize it. “Enough.”
“No, it isn’t!” he screams, the sound echoing off the tops of the trees, scaring a few birds.
I shift forward, the sensation of being watched settling on my shoulders.Quickly scanning the tree line, I don’t note anything out of the ordinary, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. At Avernia, someone is always watching—even if that someone is the forest itself, waiting for the moment it’s able to reclaim you.
“Beckett,” I repeat, more forcefully this time, reaching for his arm. If he continues, he’ll kill Jean-Louis, and while I’m not opposed to that at the moment, I don’t think Beckett will be able to live it down. Especially not in his current state.
He jerks against me, frustration tearing from his chest in the form of a deep, agitated groan.
“It will never end,” he says, the blood spatter across his face being diluted with his tears. “The founding families will never be happy, and you’ll never look at me the same after this.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She was waiting for you,” he replies, sawing my heart in two.
I’m not sure which she he means.
